Transgender

Forum











Brittany Rose




Dear Sisters,

By Brittany Rose

Where No Man Has Gone Before

The first full weekend of March was the semi-annual Star Trek convention in Denver. They have guests from Star Trek, Babylon 5, and others. I’ve gone several times, but this year I wanted to experience it at least in part en femme.

The first issue was my name. I’ve been dressing for only a year and a half, and I’m always trying to improve my ability to blend in. I’ve discovered that to successfully blend, a TG is dealing with a rather lengthy checklist of female attributes. The more you can check off, the better your chance of blending successfully. This can be everything from appropriate clothing, natural wig, and accurate voice, to hairless arms, shaped eyebrows, and long manicured nails. As I’ve explained to my wife, yes, there are women who have hairy arms, who have bushy eyebrows, or who have short nails, but they already max out in the other feminine attribute categories. (Such an unfair advantage GG’s have!) For me to blend successfully, I have to be able to hit as many of the little attributes as possible. (I would love to compile the checklist for a future column. Please feel free to contribute.)

What does this have to do with my name? It’s always concerned me that Brittany is a little too trendy. (It made RuPaul’s list of drag queen names.) Plus, I’m a little too old for the Brittany generation. I love the name, but it seemed to me that a plainer name would be more fitting. Also I tend to associate different names with different wigs, and although my long red wig is definitely Brittany, my new natural one is not. So I’m planning to go with Beth for my regular name. Brittany will be my stage name for writing and performing. (My Nom de Plumage, if you will.)


Brittany in Beth mode

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, the convention. We arrived Friday evening, and all day Saturday we toured the dealer’s room, listened to the stars talk, watched previews, and enjoyed ourselves. Then Sunday I decided to give Beth a chance to tour. We got up that morning, dressed, shaved, and did my face, going for as natural as possible. I put on my baggy jeans, and to try something new, I just wore one of the convention T-shirts. Basic accessories of rings, a new feminine watch and earrings completed the look. (A note about earrings: I don’t have pierced ears. So I’m always trying to find clip-ons that look pierced. I have had a lot of success at thrift shops and mall stores, like Claire’s, in finding hoops and others that really look quite good.) A check in the mirror and we headed downstairs to the convention. It was wonderful! No second looks, tho’ I’m sure I was read by some, and some delightful exchanges. I met Harry Shearer (he does a lot of the male voices on the Simpsons) and got his autograph, and sat in on several of the presentations. I didn’t have the confidence in my voice to get up and ask questions, tho’. They were also running a contest based on this year’s theme – Starfleet Academy. If you got all the stickers from the different booths, you got a special diploma for having attended the con. It was fun to go up to the convention table and get my diploma made out in the name of Beth Phillips!

I spent most of my time walking around in the dealer’s room. I chatted with one dealer for over a half-hour about Canada and other things, and browsed and talked briefly with several others. But the highlight was one particular conversation.

When I began dressing it was my expectation that I would be perceived as a well-dressed TG, but my dream was to be perceived as a woman who happens to be really, really tall. Imagine my delight when one of the merchants started out a conversation with "How tall are you?" He continued for about 15 minutes asking about life as a really tall woman. (Do you play basketball? Was it hard getting dates?) I had thought it would be wonderful to be asked those questions, but I hadn’t ever thought that I would need to come up with answers. Eep! Luckily, I think fairly quickly on my feet. ("It was hard finding guys who weren’t intimidated by me, but a lot of times the shorter guys were the better dates.")

Then at the end of the day it was time to go home. I had been dressed for over eight hours in the daytime around lots of people, and I was starting to wear down. After loading the car, I got in the elevator for one last trip. I said hi to the other passenger, a young woman, and after a moment she asked if I was dressed up. I said yes, and she asked a couple of questions before stepping out of the elevator. "Do you do this a lot?" "Are those real?" (yes and no). Then I asked her what tipped her off, and she said nothing really, just that my voice was a little low, and my hair looked a little ‘wiggy’. Back in the room, I told my wife that I’d been read, and she pointed out that I should have felt good about it. Even after a very long day the woman hadn’t read me, but was only suspicious. Otherwise, she would have come out and asked if I was a man, instead of the noncommittal question, "Are you dressed up?" An all around fun day! (and of course, no pictures.)

Licensed to Dress

While I was at the Convention, at one point it looked as if I would have to write a check, and all I had for ID was my boy driver’s license. I did some checking around and discovered that in Colorado you can’t have two driver’s licenses, but you can have a driver’s license and an ID card. It still has the full boy name on it, but you can get the picture and signature you want. Not perfect, but I would be able to use it when I’m dressed, and it gives me a femme license for that slot in my pocketbook. I also needed to get pictures for the Miss TG Forum contest, and for some inexplicable reason Ma Vie en Rose was showing at a theater in town. (Since the only art film theater in town closed, we never get foreign films. Why Rose, I have no idea.) So when I got home from work, I slipped into my casual uniform (baggy green sweater and jeans. My wife really wants me to wear something else next time.), wig, and natural face, and drove to the license bureau. Which had changed its hours and was already closed. Grrrrr. But it turned out the license booth in the mall on the other side of town was still open. So I drove to the mall, waited in line, gave her my regular driver’s license, filled out the form, and had my picture taken. Then I browsed around the mall waiting for my license to be done. JC Penney’s to look at their tall women’s clothes (a small rack of horrid polyester slacks), Payless to try on shoes, and the bookstores. Finally she gave me my ID, and I asked her if she had read me before she saw my driver’s license. She said no. (I admit it, I’m shameless.) Not a great photo, but it will do.

By then, there was no time to do both the pictures and the movie, and since the movie was closing the next night, the pictures would have to wait. I drove to the theater and chatted with the ticket taker and refreshment girl waiting for the movie. I expected to be the only audience member, but a couple came in and sat down behind me just as the movie started. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Ma Vie en Rose is the story of a young boy who believes himself to be a girl, and the effects this behavior has on his family. I had heard very good things about it, but what I hadn’t heard was how painful much of the story was. I was glad I went, and I could certainly relate to a lot of it, but some scenes were particularly difficult to watch. I would strongly recommend it, but don’t expect lighthearted entertainment. Afterwards in the parking lot, I discussed the movie with the couple. They had chosen the movie on the spur of the moment, without any idea what it was, except that it had won some award, and they thought it was "different". I wasn’t read, (I’m assuming that based on the fact that they didn’t make any connection between me and the subject matter of the film) and we talked for about ten minutes before we parted.

Picture Taking

With everything else going on, it was several days later before we finally got to take pictures. Not much to tell except that I, like so many of us, absolutely love to have my picture taken. (The odd thing is, that in boy mode, I avoid the camera like the plague.) After the photo session, I did stay dressed to go to Wal-Mart to get the pictures developed and Kinko’s to get them scanned. (Yes, in my jeans and sweater. My wife may hide them if I try to wear them again.) No moral-of-the-story this time, just another fun month.

So what did I do in April? Next time I’ll tell you about my trip to see a Colorado Rockies baseball game … with my adopted grandmother! (And yes, I got pictures this time!)

Till then I hope that I remain

Fashionably yours,

Brittany Rose

BrittTV@aol.com

 

TGF's Home Page